Gun violence

I wrote this piece for a writing group I'm part of. I can't take all the credit for it so I must give Vern, a co-worker and fellow writer, some credit. He is the one who came up with many of the main ideas expressed in this blog as well as brought Dr. Cohen's article to my attention. I have reworded things a bit and expressed some of my own views. Enjoy.

In the days and weeks following any school shooting, the media is full of reactive solutions to the violence, such as metal detectors, random locker searches, and zero tolerance rules that do little but infringe upon the students’ rights and make schools feel more like prisons. And we know how safe prisons are. Then along comes The Hartford Courant columnist Laurence D. Cohen with his solution to let school administrators and teachers carry weapons in an effort to combat school violence. Now it all makes sense! It’s no wonder kids believe that bullets solve problems. Apparently everyone else does, too.

Cohen cites an incident in Joplin, MO where a kid fired a shot into the ceiling of his school, the gun jammed, nobody was hurt, and the boy was apprehended. But Cohen begs the question of what would have happened if the rifle had not jammed and goes to suggest that, “Maybe the story would be more reassuring if the school administrator spotted the boy with the rifle, told him to drop the rifle; the boy refused—and the school executive pulled out a revolver and shot the kid in the head.” So we train these administrators to shoot to kill? Even the police are trained to shoot to disarm. Cohen comes across as the crotchety “you damn kids get off my lawn” type old man whose solution to dealing with troubled youth is to put them out of their misery. I read Cohen’s article waiting for the punch line or satirical slant but, alarmingly, there was none.

First off, the kids who bring guns to school are not afraid to die. Often times, they commit suicide after their attacks are complete because they can’t bear to face the consequences of their actions. These are angry, scared and weak kids. Then sometimes they are shot by police. So replace suicide and the police with school administrators and the only thing that really changes is who is pulling the trigger. It won’t lessen the body count.

Rarely do we hear about proactive solutions. The words “massacre” and “violence” grab more headlines than “peace” and “love.” We crave violence almost as much as we abhor it. What’s even more prevalent is our need for instant gratification. We want a fast and easy solution to everything. A teen brings a gun to school to instantly get the respect he craves and as a result, we want our instant solutions to stop these types of tragedies from ever happening again.

What about the idea of raising kids in a culture of love instead of hatred and violence? The cynical hear the cry of love as a plea by the uninformed, the power malnourished and the weak, but nothing is more powerful than love. Children aren’t born with the innate desire to hate. They are born to love; to give it, receive it, crave it and depend on it. The hate comes later but it does not have to. Kids are not genetically predestined to bring a pistol to school and unload it into fellow classmates.

Our society may not like this solution because it is not tangible. “Love” is not something you can hold in your hand and there’s no cookie cutter idea of what love is or how kids should be raised. This idea also puts more responsibility into the hands of the parents and asks them to be more accountable for the actions of their children. For instance, talk to your children and occasionally take a peek in the garage to see if they are building crude pipe bombs.

You can’t put a timetable on “love.” Tactically, the answer is complex because it requires a societal change; change in belief, attitudes, and most importantly, actions. People are slow to change because it means relinquishing control, exposing some vulnerability and risking that someone or something could gain advantage over you. If society as a whole is urged to change, to embrace a culture of love and kindness rather than selfishness and violence, does that mean that more kids won’t be shot to death in schools in the meantime? No way. I’m not that naive. That’s just as ridiculous as the idea that teachers packing heat would solve the gun violence problem in our schools. But it’d be a start.